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Operatives of the Nigerian Police Force (NPF) and the Department of State Services (DSS) have arrested 20 suspected hackers for allegedly hacking the 2025 Computer-based Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) exercise.
Pulse gathered that the suspects were apprehended during operations in the nation's capital, Abuja.
They are believed to be part of a syndicate of about 100 people who specialise in hacking the computer servers of examination bodies like the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) and the National Examinations Council (NECO).
Security sources disclosed that the suspects confessed to sabotaging the CBT systems to discredit JAMB and dissuade students from using CBT for future examinations conducted by NECO and the West African Examination Council, WAEC.
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The hacking scheme was reportedly designed to influence high scores for special candidates who paid between ₦700,000 and ₦2 million. A significant number of the syndicate were said to be owners of private schools and colleges who made huge sums of money from running special centres.
JAMB Registrar Prof Ishaq Oloyede
The development comes two weeks after the release of the 2025 UTME results.
A breakdown showed that more than 78% of candidates scored less than 200 points out of the 400 maximum points obtainable, making the 2025 exercise a mass failure.
Subsequently, JAMB Registrar Prof Ishaq Oloyede announced that a technical glitch had marred the exercise, affecting 379,997 candidates across 157 centres in Lagos and the south-east zone.
Oloyede explained that faulty server updates prevented candidate responses from being uploaded during the first three days of the exam, adding that the problem, which was caused by one of its technical service providers, went undetected before the results were released.
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JAMB has since conducted a resit examination for affected candidates, which ran from May 16 to May 19, 2025.